Friday, July 13, 2018

F³ Book of Secrets

Nikki
pushed a mismatched set of leather-wrapped, well, books, at me.

I quirked
an eyebrow at her, but instead of looking at me, she was looking at the books.
Her expression was unreadable, but she was clearly focused on the books. These
were important, and something big.

I pulled
the stack over, then picked up the top book. It wasn’t a book, exactly, so much
as a folio. The pages had been stitched together, but it was all rough, done by
hand. Books like this were popular with the younger crowd as journals, trying
to copy a medieval style with modern materials.

I rubbed
the leather between my fingers. It was oiled, and had the feeling of age though
it had been well-preserved. I touched the pages, too, but didn’t open the book.
The pages were rougher than today, thicker, too. I brought it up to my face and
gave a sniff. It smelled old.

I looked at
her again. She met my eyes, but something was still off. She sat upright in the
chair, looking intently. Her hands were neatly folded in her lap, and she
hadn’t said one word since coming in the door.

I undid the
leather tie around the book I held and opened it to a random page near the
beginning. The writing was rough, and clearly in another language. I fumbled
over the words and recognized enough Old German to call it that. I used my
thumb on the pages like a flipbook to see more writing. Two things stood out:
there were date entries followed by blocks of prose, and the handwriting
improved to a familiar, elegant script.

“Yours,” I
said. “From the beginning?”

“Near
enough,” she answered.

“What do
you want me to do with these?”

She
swallowed “Read them. Know me.”

It was a
phenomenal gesture of trust on her part. Full access to not just a report on
her life, not tidbits uncovered through historical research, but her story in
her own words, secrets that she had committed to paper and existed nowhere else
in the planet.

My response
was immediate. “No, thank you.” I closed the journal and retied the leather
around it.

Her eyes
were on me again, a slight crease in her forehead from the eyes coming
together, though the frown didn’t touch her mouth. I didn’t say anything.

“H-how?—I
know your curious nature, Matthew. I would have thought you would jump at the
chance. I am trying to be open with you.”

“I
appreciate it. You’re worried, though. You think knowing about your will change
our relationship. If you’ve been honest in this,” I held up the book, “you’ve
killed a lot of people, and probably taken a lot of pleasure from that. You’re
a vampire. I get it. I don’t need gory details. I know everything I need to
know about you. I know who you are, today.”

She cocked
her head to the side. “You continue to surprise me, Matthew. I had thought that
you would appreciate satiating your curiosity and that you would come to
understand my past. I did not expect—” she stopped, and took a breath. “How is
it that you can so quickly deny your nature?”

I didn’t
have an answer for that. I could have fired back with a joke, which was what
immediately came to mind, but it wasn’t right in this moment. I looked back at
the journals.

“These
aren’t you. They’re part of you, but not all of you. You’re more than this. And
I guess I’m more than just a curious detective. The most important part of us
isn’t found in a book. It’s in living. Or in unliving in the case of a
vampire,” I smirked.